


As It Seems

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Dark, Friendship, Gen, Internal Monologue, Nightmares, Partnership, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-16 18:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5836846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully is anguished about the way Mulder doesn't see her, despite how central she is to his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As It Seems

Come and play in my nightmares.

You with your dark eyes and dark gazes and dark hair, you who hover in the center of my world with the manner of a shadow and the substance of a brick wall. Come in and play.

At nights you sob your darkest dreams into me, the ones with the glowing lights and the shadow men and the bitter emptiness of being alone and abandoned ever after. I want to scream at you. Alone? You. Are. Not. Alone.

Who’s chasing the conspiracies and the monsters with you in this comic book reality we’re living? I’m here when the Batsignal summons us forth from that dark basement cave. I’m here when the demons swarm. Pay attention, because there will be a quiz later.

This is the stuff you need to pay attention to. Your dreams I know too well. The light the light the men Samantha the confused and blurred horrors that have become a litany of example for me. But do you dream my dreams? Do you understand what horrors I’ve absorbed from you?

There is no light. Do you understand? I wish I could dream your dreams more; at least I can see and at least I’m in a familiar hell. Come on over, little boy, and play with me.

You want to hear about my dreams, you know you do. It all starts with music. Just phrases that bounce about hollowly, echoing in the amphitheatre where all the world’s a stage and I am the lead player. I hear the notes, one two three– heavenly shades of night– controlled and directed by his red right– that’s why I say hey man nice shot, and then, high above the chorus, children’s voices. The Vienna fucking Boy’s Choir, for all I know.

They’re singing to me, invisible music in the suddenly silent air, and I recognize it. Kyrie Eleison, God have mercy upon us. Over and over they sing to me. Christ, have mercy upon us. Over and over I stand alone in the landscape of my nightmares, the great netherworld. The sweet high voices whispering it to me–

Kyrie Eleison and then it all falls apart. The images blur, because they move so fast and I see your light the light the drill the sound the whispers of the shadow men. I see the stars and hear the cries around me and I’m praying to God. Kyrie Eleison. Kill me or save me, dear Lord, but not another day of this.

Sink into me a little deeper, beyond the fringes of almost-memory, beyond those faulty reconstructions of forgotten realities. I am bleeding for you. Each drop of blood that falls from my hands, my feet, my side, my back, my eyes, each drop is yours. You drink and expect more. For I have saved you, you tell me. These are the images I give to you.

Faces whirl by, almost inconsequential, but I try to apologize and apologize and apologize. They move too fast and I give chase but I’m not ever going to catch up with them and I just watch them all pass me by. You know the next words.

For now, follow me down the path to hell, angel. Are all my despairs and needs and desires written upon my body? Are they seared into my skin the way it feels with your tears? Each teardrop that splashes against me burns and leaves a scar on my soul.

It’s a cold dark place for me, oh dear God. Do you remember Boggs? Do you remember that? I have waltzed in Hell with the murderers and monsters who have sought a last confession, a last cleansing communion. But I give whatever grace I have to you. Follow me down the garden path, deeper and deeper into the tangles of my nightmares.

The boys choir is singing for mercy, and the children are all dying. A garden of children, and each one I try to touch withers and dies. I can’t save them. I can only save you, you, you.

The nightmares drown me, and sometimes I dream of that. I dream of water and I, in my white nightgown like a little girl’s, white flannel, the sort every girl has, I find myself by the edge of the sea, my father’s blue Pacific, salt like the tears shed by we the living.

I find myself at the edge of the sea, looking down at my bare feet and shell-perfect toenails. The waves swirl and white foam tickles my toes. I look at the sea, which is restless and cold and absorbing. I surrender.

Into the water, further and further, until that flannel nightgown clings snugly to my breasts, my thighs, my arms. I wade in, letting the water take me. When I can no longer touch the sandy bottom, I start to swim, stroke after stroke. Further. I look back for the shore, and it’s receding away into nothingness. Unreal City, Unreal Shore. I swim further and when I don’t want to swim any more, I stop. And I drown. The water fills my lungs and I bubble like champagne and the sea absorbs me and I dissolve.

In those nightmares, I am glad glad glad that I’ve drowned. I want that cold, I want that oblivion, I want that final absolution from this role I have taken.

_Kyrie Eleison._

These are not the extent of my nightmares. They are more than the amalgam of my lost time, my greatest horrors, and a desire for freedom from the sorrows of my life. I have dreamt of the ouroborous coming to life and strangling me, but those aren’t really the nightmares I mean. Those are bad dreams, the psychology and poetry and phantasms mixing over an undigested apple dumpling.

What are dreams, anyway? Controlled outpourings of madness that twist and turn and tangle in the complex world of sanity and dissolve like spiderwebs upon waking. Then there are those sorts of dreams that are like tough webs. They cling in corners, refusing to come down at all.

I live in a house of spiderwebs, all of them ignored like a crazy aunt. They’re not hurting me, I promise they won’t hurt you– come and play. Come and see.

Listen to me.

Listen to me!

Nightmares, blood, water, drowning– you might have heard, but you don’t understand. Come here.

Each breath I take is different. Each heartbeat, each moment, I am trying to live. I am trying not to drown in a river of my shallow regrets. I don’t hate you. I have chosen what I have chosen and I am who I am. I just want you to see–

I have a nightmare about fading away like this.

It’s such a simple dream. I am standing in front of a crowd and I’m screaming the truth to them, everything we’ve ever feared is true and I want to save the world but nobody’s listening. I don’t understand why, because I’m screaming at the top of my lungs.

Then I realize it’s because I’m disappearing. They can’t see me. They can’t hear me. My screaming is only a whisper to these people. I’m not real. I’m fading– and then there’s you. You just stand there but I realize the reason I’m not real anymore is because of you.

You.

Does that make any sense? You’re the psychologist. Tell me what it all means. What’s driving me down this path to where no one recognizes me, not my friends, not my co-workers, not my family, nobody except you and me?

When I wake up the tears streak my face and dampen my pillow. I am so tired, so very tired. Can you understand this? The children sing, I dream of horrors unabated, and what happens when the music stops?

You’re not listening. More than that, you don’t hear. You just stand there like a marble statue, those dark eyes flat and empty, and when I call your name, you do not respond. You stare at me like the dead.

I run up to you, furious. I scream. I plead for a little compassion, and at the last, a little pity, though it hurts me to have to ask for this. Pity. I never wanted pity from you.

When I reach you, you who I have tried to make understand, I realize you’re gone, that you’re dissolving into nothingness. I try to hold on to one small bit of you, but there’s nothing to hold on to. Quintessence of dust. Bags of sand the weight of a daughter. And not one hair on your head can I keep for myself, because you were never mine to keep. And soon even the dust is gone and I am alone as ever and–

With a gasp, I find myself back at square one. My bed. My pillow. I roll over and pound my fists into the mattress. No no no no! Why can’t I ever reach you? Why can’t I find the words to tell you?

I realize belatedly why I’m awake. The phone is ringing. I pick up. It is your voice on the other end. You with your atonal voice, you whose shadowy presence seeps even into my most private moments. You are here. God have mercy upon me. And upon you.

Come and play.


End file.
